CHI88LA220 · Piper PA-28R-200
Piper PA-28R-200 · Accident: total loss of engine power (mechanical failure) en route
From Riverview Airport (08C) to 3HA · Lansing, IL
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI88LA220
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Piper PA-28R-200
- Aircraft type
- Piper PA-28
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N5140S
- Operator
- Boersma, Henry L. · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Riverview Airport (08C), Jenison, MITo 3HA · Lansing, IL
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Total loss of engine power (mechanical failure)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Fluid, oil › Leak
- Fluid, oil › Starvation
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
WHILE CRUISING OVER LAKE MICHIGAN AT NGT, A LOSS OF OIL PRESSURE OCCURRED WHICH WAS QUICKLY FOLLOWED BY AN ENGINE FAILURE. THE PLT PERFORMED EMERGENCY PROCEDURES & PREPARED FOR A FORCED LANDING. HE WAS ABLE TO GLIDE TO SHORE, BUT DUE TO 'INDUSTRIAL TERRAIN' ALONG THE SHORELINE, HE ELECTED TO DITCH THE ACFT IN LAKE MICHIGAN NEAR THE SHORE. AFTER DITCHING, HE EXITED THE ACFT & SWAM TO A BREAKWATER AND THE ACFT SANK. HE WAS RESCUED ABOUT 5 HRS LATER & WAS TREATED FOR HYPOTHERMIA. THE ACFT WAS FURTHER DAMAGED WHEN IT WAS RETRIEVED FROM THE LAKE. NO MECHANICAL REASON WAS FOUND FOR THE LOSS OF OIL PRESSURE.
Probable cause
FAILURE OF THE POWERPLANT DUE TO AN OIL LEAK AND SUBSEQUENT FORCED LANDING INTO UNSUITABLE TERRAIN.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI88LA220
- Event ID
- 20001213X26521
- Case number
- CHI88LA220
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: local date, investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date; the NTSB stores the UTC date 1988-08-27.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 46c35444b93b1ecdef5db1be1e5ccd9f2e13f1ceda703890768806861aa4b560; retrieved 2026-09-22T00:25:35.584Z.